Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

I love Liane Moriarty's books. They always grab hold of me and I'm always left stunned when I finish them. Okay, I've only read three, but they've all been good. The latest for me is Big Little Lies which centers around Madeline, Celeste, and Jane, three mothers with children in the local primary school. Madeline has been at the school for years with her older children and she knows everyone as well as the ins and outs of all the school politics. Celeste is the shockingly beautiful mother of kinder twins and there may be something she is hiding. Jane is the much younger single mother who is still trying to find her place in the world and in motherhood. When one child becomes the focus of another child's bullying it leads to crisis and scandal in the school and the book begins with the announcement that someone has been murdered. Told in flashbacks, the reader is shown all the little things leading up to the mysterious murder. Every few chapters are a countdown to the night we know someone is going to die which lends a delicious tension and excitement to the book.

Stephen King is quoted on the cover of this book, calling it, "A hell of a good book. Funny and scary." Is the murder part of the book scary? No, but the school politics sure are. I am pretty involved in my children's school and, while I've never seen things get as bad as this, sometimes the parental interactions can get a little sticky. I was amused with the descriptions of some of the mothers at the school.

In addition, this is the first book for my brand new book club. I have such high hopes. There are some interesting topics for discussion such as domestic violence, the roles of women and how we interact with (and sometimes judge) one another, and the carryover of some of those things we thought we may have left behind in middle or high school. I've heard great things about the HBO mini-series, but I haven't seen it yet myself. I liked this book and if you're putting together a stack of vacation reads for summer, I think you should definitely add this one.